I can’t say it’s been a long year, just the usual 365 days. A great proportion of those days have been working from home, where the walls can sometimes feel very close as you can bury your head in work from early till a bit too late and wonder where the day went.
I’ve always had an appreciation that there is always someone else worse off, so I don’t feel that I have had anything to complain about. Living in the Bay of Plenty we have been able to enjoy a ton more freedom than our friends in Auckland, Northland, Australia and beyond.
It’s important to have good routines when working from home to keep motivated and purposeful. While many are doing it incredibly hard, on the other hand a lot of talk about how much has been saved this year, in terms of travel and other incidentals of not needing to dress for work etc.
One of the challenges I feel I face now and no doubt our colleagues and as a business is how do we save work relationships. Jenkins has adopted a hard line in separation of the different business areas and for good reason. The absolute joy of seeing a colleagues face on a team’s meeting that you don’t usually interact with but regularly passed on the way to the lunchroom etc is huge.
While I’m a heavy critic of office gossip, sometimes there is a fine line between gossip and knowing how a colleague is feeling or what is going on in their world. I’m a glass half full type of person and most days pretty upbeat, I really feel for people whose glass is the other way around and don’t have the same family or network support to keep them smiling.
I wonder too if the social media craze is dying away, the more time I spend on my own the less care I have about meaningless shite in other people’s lives and it’s the real and important stuff that matters. So, if I’m not the only person that is feeling like this how do we save the former work colleague interaction or is it too late and is this another stage of human relationships that has gone?
After preaching all year about self-care and reducing stress, balance etc I find myself in a bit of a vortex with the days disappearing before the 25th and the pile of work and next season prep almost seeming unsurmountable. There’s only one way to tackle that, head down and into it, Jo. Put in the hard yards, long days, and the relief of sitting back and being able to say, you know what, I’ve done enough to setup 2022, now take some time out to spend with my beautiful grandsons and family. That’s what it’s all about for me.
Do the mahi, get the treats.
Merry Christmas all, happy holidays. Take care, smile lots and see you back next year.